Viviano Codazzi

With Aldo Serafinelli, Rome;
From whom acquired by the present owners in 1975. 

This small scale architectural capriccio is an extremely rare work on copper by Viviano Codazzi. David Marshall has dated the work to Codazzi's Roman period, or the late 1650's/early 1660's, a moment in the artist's career when he executed a number of similarly constructed thatched structures (see D.R. Marshall, Viviano and Niccolo Codazzi, Milan 1993, cat. VC155, 182 , and 183). This dating coincides with a period during which collaborated on the staffage with the specialists Fillipo Lauri, Michelangelo Cerquozzi and Jan Miel, though Marshall has determined that the figures in this work are by an as yet unidentified hand. The spatial construction and architecture here recalls a number of works by Codazzi, notably a larger canvas formerly on the Roman art market (see op. cit. VC 183), though Marshall notes that this small work may very well be the artist's only known picture on copper.